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Now that Zimbabwe is assured of raising initial stocks of Covid-19 vaccine to one million doses within a couple of weeks, the vaccination programme can be speeded up and needs to be speeded up.
It started this week with the first 200 000 doses of Sinopharm vaccine, a gift from China.
As expected the first couple of days were a bit slow as the staff administering the doses get used to doing this and those in the first stage get ready to line up. Medical officers in the provinces and districts were expecting things to speed up significantly, which is good.
But with a second gift of 200 000 doses from China, plus our commercial order of 600 000 doses from Sinopharm, both coming fairly soon we can now accelerate the programme.
Those one million doses are enough for 500 000 people, which means we can cover almost all with the highest risk of infection and make a huge inroad into those at the highest risk of needing complicated medical care or even dying if they are infected, the elderly and those with pre-existing medical conditions, and very often both considering the way these ailments accumulate as you get older.
That in turn will be reflected out of all proportion to the numbers in our medical statistics. Infection rates should fall fast as those most likely to be infected are protected, while death rates and hospital admissions will drop sharply as many of those who need to be in the special wards if they fall sick are safe.
By using priority criteria for how the population queues for vaccination, we have ensured that the first one million doses will have a far larger effect than subsequent batches, although these are still desperately needed to save lives and eliminate the virus.
Even young and fit people can fall very sick or die, although the percentages are lower.
While having these lower rates and the first 500 000 people in the two most vulnerable groups protected will not allow us to return to “normal” or anything like normal, it will allow far more flexibility on what we lockdown and the level of lockdown, although we will all be in masks and keeping our distance until the virus has vanished from the surface of the earth, the result of a long global battle with every country playing its part.
China has not just proved to be a good friend throughout our Covid-19 fight, but clearly believes Zimbabwe is serious about combating Covid-19 so aid given is never wasted, but does contribute to that global battle.
The double gift of vaccine doses, which Ambassador Guo Shaochun made clear had to be approved by President Xi Jinping personally, and the early release of our first commercial order, has to be seen in the light of China’s need to vaccinate 1,4 billion people, that is use 2,8 billion doses in Sinopharm’s own country.
No one is going to slow their own vaccine programme, even marginally, to help a small country that is not serious.
Right at the beginning of the pandemic, China stepped in with support, equipment, test kits and laying on quality advice from doctors. We heeded the advice and we used the equipment and test kits properly.
In fact, Zimbabwe has been fortunate in the support it has received, all the way from small local gifts to large blocks of aid from other countries and international donors.
President Mnangagwa promised at the very beginning that this aid, plus what the taxpayers involuntarily contributed, would be accounted for in full.
That has been done. The fact that a Health Minister, accused of trying to misuse tax dollars, has been arrested and fired and now a very senior official in the Health Ministry has been arrested and faces trial on a swathe of corruption-related charges involving international aid for her department, adds to our credibility.
These things happen, as those who follow British news realise when they read about some of the contracts in what has been described as a British ‘chumocracy’.
The point is Zimbabwe does not tolerate this and the Government has already taken action to stop it at source, with handcuffs. Knowing that everything will be checked and audited means that everyone is happy that we will use everything we are given properly.
Some people are still nervous about vaccination, and the drivel that all too often passes for news on social media does not help. It is perhaps pertinent to note, considering the last social media blast, that the World Health Organisation is quite capable of issuing its own warnings and its own advice.
It does not need to use lawyers or opposition politicians to do this. And if that politician had ever walked through the door of a medical school it was because he was lost on his way to the law library.
The WHO office in Zimbabwe was very clear on its advice as the Health Ministry unveiled its vaccination programme a few days before it started. Boiled down, the advice was the day your group was called in for vaccination, stand in the queue.
Doctors and nurses, the very people we all turn to when we are sick or need medical advice, were the first group to be called in, and they have been lining up for their jabs this week.
They know the value of vaccination, and can make informed medical decisions. Even if it is not 100 percent effective, and no vaccine is, it is a major safeguard against infection.
And if there are any side effects they will notice these, precisely, and tell the rest of us. We do not need weirdos on social media to tell us how we can die. We can follow medical advice to tell us how to stay alive. Let us not forget that the nurse giving us the jab has already been through the process.
As the Ministry of Health and Child Care ramps up our programme, possible now with guaranteed supplies of vaccine now being readied for shipment and more staff available now that health workers are being immunised, we should take advantage of the programme as soon as it is our turn, and follow the advice of those who know what they are talking about.
We have done well as a nation to contain our infection and death rates.
We can and must now go a lot further and eliminate the threat altogether.
Online Reporter